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Left on the Platform

Fascinating that the suggestion has arisen that Redmond might actually give its software away. If true, then to me, it stinks of sheer desperation. Fine, give the two operating systems away.....but it will make little difference to the take-up of Win-based phones or pads from what I see and hear. The point Microsoft is missing is that people are now so indifferent and turned off Redmond-ware that you cannot give the stuff away...certainly the kids don't want it.

The train has long left the station and has been booked out by Android with a couple of carriages reserved for Apple. Microsoft has missed the express to the future......and you cannot help but think it's trying to catch up using a Pump Trolley.

Microsoft can't let go of their pump trolley. If they dared to be bold again, like they were with the creation of Windows NT in the nineties and let go of the albatros that is Windows, the technology and the brand, they might stand a chance.

Develop something new and lightweight, maybe revive and polish .NET as a tier one development platform to give it a modern application environment. Dump any Win32 dependencies. Make .NET truly free, top to bottom and place it as the go to platform in the market. Make .NET integrate easily with Microsoft services like Outlook.com, Azure, etc. Give the new platform a completely new name and avoid any association with Windows, maybe Microsoft Momentum...

Microsoft is stagnant and afraid to pursue the new. If they don't up the ante, they will slowly but surely fade and fade and fade... until the husk is something like The SCO Group. Quite undead and a mere nuisance.

r_a_trip has stated exactly what I have believed for ages: Windows is now so clumsy, poorly designed and shot with lousy security that it needs tossing out and a new Windows OS needs to be written from the ground up concentrating on modularity and security - and, dare I say it, using a Unix based concept. The point I make however, is that I do not believe that Redmond will ever commit to such a novel step. It would mean acknowledging that they are wrong in their current business and software models.....nope, can't see it myself.

BernardSwiss has also made a very good comment in his thread "They can't even if they want to". It's a viewpoint I hadn't even thought of and I'd be very interested to learn more about that aspect.

Paul Thurrott's article seems to have triggered some more items on ZDNet with both Larry Dignan and Mary Jo Foley posting articles that indicate the disruptive effects Linux/Android is having on Redmond's empire.

>> Microsoft is stagnant and afraid to pursue the new. If they don't up the ante, they will slowly but surely fade and fade and fade... until the husk is something like The SCO Group. Quite undead and a mere nuisance

Right on!

SCO as an "undead" was and still is a FESTERING sore! They notoriously did so through their legal antic$ against IBM and Novell, and I'm not surprised when (not if!) Macro$uck$ will similarly confine itself to the same. Remember groklaw's coverage of SCO vs the tech world as well as coverage of those 39 patents M$ has been hurling at F/OSS companies over the last 10-15 years!!??

I'd suspect, mbaehrixer, that Redmond would have to make a complete break. Exactly how they could do that and still support past data I have no idea......but Linux can read Microsoft data and it certainly isn't Windows based so it has to be possible. I confess I know very little about API area, so what I am saying needs better heads than mine.

I'd suspect the real problem would come with complex business or govt. software designed to run on Windows and for which there is no commercial substitute. There would have to be an enormous surge in porting previous software to the new OS......These are castles in the air, and frankly, I don't think it will ever take place.

And I too miss Groklaw very much.....it was almost my first port of call every day.

Quoting:ridcully: isn't the problem having to support all the old APIs so that no matter how good the rewrite, they'd keep getting back to that same old mess?

Imagine if Microsoft became an actual contributor to Wine? I would think that even those bungling morons could solve a great many of the problems.

IMHO, Microsoft has three problems:

1) They can't imagine how to be a business where they don't dictate terms.

2) Their software is designed first around lock-in, and secondly around functionality (see #1).

3) They aren't cool anymore, and so nobody really wants their stuff for paradigm-shift tasks.

They're a lot like the Detroit automakers at the time of the first "fuel crisis" in the 1970s. They're still trying to come to grips with the idea that the world has moved on. Windows 8 is the equivalent of the Chevrolet Vega.

Microsoft has a long history of "giving" Windows away by ignoring pirated copies. (sorry, I can't think of a better word than pirated.) That was their wink-nudge method of gaining market share and becoming entrenched. They didn't change their strategy and get seriously hissy about it until Win 7 and their goofy Genuine Advantage program, and you might recall the Secure Boot craziness with Win 8, which is just more lockin even though they pretend it's security. As if Windows could ever be secured, bwahahahahahaha.

r_a_trip wrote:If they dared to be bold again, like they were with the creation of Windows NT in the nineties and let go of the albatros that is Windows, the technology and the brand, they might stand a chance.

The creation of Windows NT wasn't really a bold move. In fact, I can't think of a really bold technological move from Microsoft since they first became successful (well, not in their operating system business anyway).

Microsoft needed something to compete with Novell on the server. Originally they thought that OS/2 would be the basis for the server system they were starting to develop with IBM (since Windows 2.0 had no real traction in the marketplace modeling NT after it wasn't considered). However, when Windows 3.0 became highly successful, they decided to use the Windows API instead of the OS/2 one, and IBM split from the development efforts to create their own OS/2 based system (Warp). To make NT robust Microsoft hired members of the VMS development team. You can see that VMS and Windows NT are based around the same principles and type of architecture at low levels.

This wasn't bold on Microsoft's part because they had nothing to lose trying to enter the server market for the first time, because they imitated VMS for the underlying architecture, and because they leveraged their desktop success for the API and GUI. Technologically speaking, it was typical Microsoft.

Microsoft has a long history of being good at business and mediocre at technology. Their most innovative move was selling operating systems for personal computers to multiple vendors and the public rather than selling only computers with operating systems included or only to IBM. A combination of this with IBM's lack of foresight as to the success of the personal computer gave Microsoft the operating system market, and they've managed to hold onto it ever since by imitating successful competing products while leveraging their existing user base in every way imaginable.

Ah, the mystique of wealth and ruthlessness...Gates has successfully cultivated a myth of brilliance. He may be smart, but he is far from the lone brilliant entrepeneur that the business press adores. He comes from wealth and connections, and exploited them to the fullest. His mother, Mary Gates, served with IBM's CEO on the United Way board back when Microsoft was still a baby. What a coincidence that the timing coincided with IBM hiring the unknown Microsoft, which had no actual products yet other than the the primitive Traf-O-Data to supply them with an operating system. From a simple traffic counter to a computer operating system is rather an astonishing leap, no? She also served on other influential boards, and dad's law firm Bogle & Gates is deeply-entrenched in the oldboy network. So it's no surprise that Microsoft's wealth comes more from tricksy licensing and litigation than technology anyone would actually want to pay for.

1) They can't imagine how to be a business where they don't dictate terms.

2) Their software is designed first around lock-in, and secondly around functionality (see #1).

3) They aren't cool anymore, and so nobody really wants their stuff for paradigm-shift tasks.

They're a lot like the Detroit automakers at the time of the first "fuel crisis" in the 1970s. They're still trying to come to grips with the idea that the world has moved on. Windows 8 is the equivalent of the Chevrolet Vega.

Quoting:I've said it before, and I'm sure I'll say it again: Microsoft should write a WINE that works, call it "Microsoft Compatibility Layer", charge $50, and forget about Windows.

For that matter just include it in the new shiny O.S. (which I dub "Portal") as a deprecated feature. Something reminiscent of Apple. Create a new O.S. based on a BSDish something or other, include a pumped up version of the current Wine which exists now, and basically state that from now on thou shalt not program against the Win API lest one incur the wrath of Wine. Instead thou shalt program against the Portal API.

And just throw the whole friggen mess they currently have in the garbage.